A very old machine : the many origins of the cinema in India, 1840-1930

Obsolescence -- The nineteenth century Indian techno-bazaar -- Traveling showmen, makeshift cinemas: the Bioscopewallah and early cinema -- Part 2. mechanical reproduction and mass culture -- copyright and cultural authenticity: The politics of mechanical reproduction in South Asia -- The cinema as mass culture: the melodramas of mechanical reproduction -- Part 3. Intermediality -- The emergence of topicality: snapshot cultures and newspaper photojournalism -- Politics across media: the partition of Bengal (1905) and the cinematic city -- Part 4. Archives -- The abundant ephemeral: the protocols of popular film historiography in India -- Conclusion. Contents 6 Illustrations 8 Acknowledgments 12 Introduction 16 The Argument 19 Imaginaries 23 The Structure of the Book 29 Part I: Obsolescence 34 1. The Nineteenth-Century Indian Techno-Bazaar 36 From Novelty to Apparatus: Photography’s Material Cultures 42 Formal Expertise and Informal Know-How 46 Proto-Global Influences: The Scalar and Spatial Logic of Empire 49 Conclusion 57 2 Traveling Showmen, Makeshift Cinemas: The Bioscopewallah and Early Cinema 58 Phantasmagoria Shows 62 Lantern Slides, Kinetoscopes, and Junk Films 67 Mobile cinema and Visual Education 74 A Recycled Modernity 76 Part II: Mechanical Reproduction and Mass Culture 80 3 Copyright and Cultural Authenticity: The Politics of Mechanical Reproduction in South Asia 82 Introduction 82 Empire and the Impossibility of Originality 84 From Genius to Genus 85 Turning the Tables: The Nationality of the Image 94 Cultural Patrimony Meets “Popular” Culture 95 4 The Cinema as Mass Culture: The Melodramas of Mechanical Reproduction 98 Phalke the Craftsman 104 The Craftsman in the Meshes of Pirate Networks 107 Cinema as Mass Culture in Postcolonial India 114 Postscripts: Reminiscing the Age of Prints 115 Part III: Intermediality 120 5 The Emergence of Topicality: Snapshot Cultures and Newspaper Photojournalism 122 Bicycle Photography 123 The Ethnographic and the Picturesque Image 125 Photo-Illustrations and Film 132 Mimesis or Exemplarity? Crime Films and Photographs and the Legacy of Topicality 137 Black Sheep (1953) 140 6 Politics across Media: The Partition of Bengal (1905) and the Cinematic City 146 Cinema and Urban Space: From Imperial Ritual to Nationalist Politics 153 Cinema and the Standardization of Time 159 The Emblematic and the Tidal Crowd 166 Facing the Crowd 170 Conclusion 171 Part IV: Archives 174 7 The Abundant Ephemeral: The Protocols of Popular Film Historiography in India 176 Cinema Cinema (1979) 181 Film Hi Film (1983) 187 8. Postscript 196 Notes 204 Works Cited 228 Filmography 242 Index 244 In A Very Old Machine , Sudhir Mahadevan shows how Indian cinema's many origins in the technologies and practices of the nineteenth century continue to play a vital and broad function in its twenty-first-century present. He proposes that there has never been a singular cinema in India; rather, Indian cinema has been a multifaceted phenomenon that was (and is) understood, experienced, and present in everyday life in myriad ways. Employing methods of media archaeology, close textual analysis, archival research, and cultural theory, Mahadevan digs into the history of photography, print media, practices of piracy and showmanship, and contemporary everyday imaginations of the cinema to offer an understanding of how the cinema came to be such a dominant force of culture in India. The result is an open-ended and innovative account of Indian cinema's "many origins." Argues that Indian cinemas deep nineteenth-century past continues to play a vital role in its twenty-first-century present.